Gates and Mullen are not expected to offer a specific legislative proposal to repeal the law, but rather to detail some of the preliminary steps that need to be taken inside the military in advance of formulating a legislative plan.
Gates will discuss options for more “humanely” implementing the current ban, for example, according to a senior Pentagon official. The secretary asked his general counsel’s office for options six months ago including how to ...

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

The authors of history, as we know all too well within the feminist movement, have inordinate power to frame the way people think about, not only the past, but their present. When one talks about the founding of the U.S. only in terms of a glorious new beginning, one erases the centuries of life that had already taken root on this soil. When one invisbilizes women’s work, women’s experiences, women’s leadership, one robs the current generation of understanding their own legacy of strength and innovation in spite of the most oppressive odds.
Howard Zinn, one of history’s most radical and thoughtful scribes, passed away yesterday ...

“There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”

The authors of history, as we know all too well within the feminist movement, have inordinate power to frame the way people ...

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Finkel has written a truly heart breaking book about the war that just won’t end in Iraq. In The Good Soldiers, he follows the 2-16, a battalion of army infantry soldiers nicknamed the Rangers, as they head into “the surge” in January of 2007. He follows them as they say goodbye to their girlfriends and two-year-olds, as they arrive at the base and face the football field-sized trash pit that surrounds them (especially disconcerting in a war where IEDs are so rampant), as they grow anxious and bored, as they get injured and killed, as the lucky ones return home. The Good Soldiers is truly in a class with Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a ...

Pulitzer Prize-winner David Finkel has written a truly heart breaking book about the war that just won’t end in Iraq. In The Good Soldiers, he follows the 2-16, a battalion of army infantry soldiers nicknamed the ...

The UN recently released a report on “Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism” by Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin that focuses on gender. The report (which can be accessed in pdf form here) is mostly about human rights abuses experienced by “women,” by which it seems the author means cis women. However, it takes a broad approach to gender, looking at intersections of race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity:

Gender is not synonymous with women but rather encompasses the social constructions that underlie how women’s and men’s roles, functions and responsibilities, including in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity, are defined and understood. This report will therefore identify the gendered impact of counter-terrorism measures both ...

The UN recently released a report on “Protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism” by Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin that focuses on gender. The report (which can be accessed in pdf form here) ...

Lately I have been mulling over military moms who, upon notification of deployment, scramble to find childcare for their children. I can’t help but wring my hands and ask: where are all the fathers? And I am not talking marriage here or even money. I am talking about mutual parental involvement. Women are expected to step up when their husbands go off to war. We should expect the same of men whose wives are deployed.

My heart goes out to army moms, women who are practically invisible in war coverage. This piece stumbles on so many kernels of truth about the societal discrimination women face. For me, this narrative is particularly revealing:

Sergeant McFadden, who holds only an associate’s degree, wanted ...

Lately I have been mulling over military moms who, upon notification of deployment, scramble to find childcare for their children. I can’t help but wring my hands and ask: where are all the fathers? And I ...

Thousands of lone Afghan boys are making their way across Europe, a trend that has accelerated in the past two years as conditions for Afghan refugees become more difficult in countries like Iran and Pakistan. Although some are as young as 12, most are teenagers seeking an education and a future that is not possible in their own country, which is still struggling with poverty and violence eight years after the end of Taliban rule.
The boys pose a challenge for European countries, many of which ...

Ruthie Ackerman has written a lot of amazing work about Liberia–both past and present–as well as Liberian immigrants in the U.S. I had the good fortune of having coffee with her a month or two ago and was so struck by what a committed, courageous journalist she is, but even more, a truly incredible person. In her bio she explains:

It was following my second trip to Africa that I decided I had to do something. I could no longer just write and photograph people in communities far away from my own and then slip back into my comfortable life as if nothing ever happened. There had to be a way to show the world what I had seen, ...

Ruthie Ackerman has written a lot of amazing work about Liberia–both past and present–as well as Liberian immigrants in the U.S. I had the good fortune of having coffee with her a month or two ...